SNAP No-Interview Conference Call

Oct 31, 2012

Attending: Dawn Myers (facilitator), Heidi Wormwood, Belit Burke, Rosanne Richard (SNAP Policy); Victor (Hillsboro SSP), Jennie (Hillsboro APD); Dwight Fillmore (Beaverton SSP); Robin Shaw, Kristina Wells (Tigard SSP), Marilyn Hansen, Nai Saetern, Sandra Abundiz, Gina Santacroce (D2)

Based on group decision, weekly conference calls will now be held monthly. Next meeting will be held on Wed, Dec 3. Dawn will send out a new schedule of meeting times.

Issues/Concerns

· Gina (D2 reviewer) is citing FYI’s on her reviews of NIC cases that don’t have the HH type: NIC. SNAP cases in pilot areas should get an NIC hh type at initial cert or recert.

§ Dawn will be pulling a list centrally to determine in the pilot areas are adding the NIC HH type..

· Jennie (Hillsboro APD) discussed the problems they are seeing with applications being transferred unprocessed. Gave an example of a case that had a filing date in early Oct, and they didn’t receive it until Oct 30. It appears that the original process that was established in D16 is not being followed. Dawn asked Jennie to send her an email with examples.

§ Another point made is the importance of transferring the online case once the ebt card is issued. Otherwise, it appears like it is being processed at the branch that issued the ebt card. This also causes confusion and results in applications being transferred back and forth.

§ Applications that are to be processed at another branch, should be scanned and emailed to that branch ASAP. Don’t use EDMS as APD/AAA may not have access.

§ A suggestion was made for D16 to have a regularly scheduled meeting with management from SSP and APD to help work through some of these issues. Dawn will help organize a meeting with D16.

· Marilyn discussed what she is seeing in her branch visits/trainings. There is a misconception from some staff in the pilot areas that they cannot contact the client. She is helping re-train staff to feel comfortable calling the client if they have questions and to pend when they need clarification or verification and they could not reach the client.

· A concern came up about the way the student questions are worded on the revised 415F. It appears that a question has been combined that actually should be two separate questions. It is causing confusion for staff and resulting in a lot more pends. A concern was also brought up about the job loss question and a suggestion was made to add a question requesting the amount of the final pay

Dawn is going to look at these areas and see what revision can be made to clarify what information we need the client to provide.

There is still confusion on what constitutes an interview.

An interview is a review with the client of all the eligibility factors that are used in determining eligibility. A phone call to ask clarifying questions is not considered an interview. Workers do need to code the data sheet to reflect the areas discussed during the call.

Dawn has written a draft article for the On Target and In the Loop newsletters. She will send to a few people on the conference call to review and give feedback.

· Question came up about using client’s email as a way to ask clarifying questions. This is a good way to communicate with some clients. PC’s often will contact client by email if that is their preferred way to receive information. A concern was brought up about sharing a worker’s direct email with the client. It was suggested that, as an alternative, staff send email using their branch email address.

It is pretty easy to do in Outlook and Dawn and Nai will work on putting together a procedure on how to send emails from the branch email address. It will be posted online on the No Interview Pilot web page.

Next meeting: Dec 3, 10-11 a.m.